It’s official - scientists have uncovered which biscuit is the very best for dunking into tea.
The study was published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal and was conducted in order to ‘better inform NHS staff when having a tea break’.
The research was carried out by doctors to “identify the best accompanying biscuit for nutritional content, crunchiness, and integrity when dunking”, alongside determining the “time required to achieve optimal palatability of a cup of tea without risk of harm (oral scalding)”.
And before you reach for the biscuit barrel, you’ll want to make sure you’ll well stocked with the very biscuit for dunking into a cup of tea and coffee.
The winner is... oaty biscuits.
Doctors Ceri Jones and John Francis carried out the research (we’re very jealous) and they tried out four different varieties of round, non-chocolate biscuit, with oat biscuits beating digestives, rich teas and shortbread to the top spot.
Oat biscuits like Hobnobs lasted an impressive 34.3 seconds in a freshly-brewed cup of tea before they fell apart, while digestives lasted 28.3 seconds.
Shortbread biscuits held together for 31.7 seconds and tea biscuits crumbled after just 21.3 seconds.
Ceri Jones, co-author of the study from Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, said: “This started off as a joke standing next to the biscuit tin, but turned into a piece of research.
“A cup of tea is such an important part of the day, when you get to stop and have a mental break, so people don’t want a biscuit spoiling it by falling in their mug or spattering their shirt with tea.
“We now know that biscuit breakage is less likely with an oat biscuit like a Hobnob, but it hasn’t really changed my biscuit of choice, which remains a shortie.”